The more I learn about archeology and anthropology, the more I discover that primates and violence seem to go hand in hand.

It may be that our unique primate opposable thumb+big “thinking” brain combination – while an incredible engineering and survival tool kit – has a great and fatal flaw.
That great flaw often leads us to believe things and then do things, not because they are true and supported by evidence, but because we want them to be true, we need them to be true, possibly to satisfy some ancient need, or qwell a fear that exists only in the past. Sadly, it seems that for many Modern humans, believing something is true is easier than working to find out if it really is true.

Sadly, this fact, encoded in our DNA, and in the DNA of every human walking the earth today going all the way back to our humble beginnings on the African savanna – is a deepset part our our own evolutionary history.

This great and fatal flaw may in fact be the undoing of our species, leaving us as just another fossilized animal deposit in the rock strata of deep time.

Honestly, I hope I am wrong on this, but the evidence from the last few hundred decades suggests otherwise.
Looking at the fossil record of our family tree we see that every single one, every one – every early human save for us, only exists, no longer in the flesh, but as ancient fossil remains recorded in the rocks. May it be that these ancestors of ours are extinct by their own hand?
Maybe the fatal flaw was their downfall?
Maybe the fatal flaw will render us extinct as it may have done for them? I hope not. We have so much potential.

Or maybe it was their strong, evolutionary survival instinct that lead to a hyper-selfish focus on surviving which, over time, selected for early humans with a lack of empathy – with only a drive and focus to acquire that which it needed to survive while pushing its own kind out of the way. Millions of years ago it was competition for food and brute strength that kept the bullies alive.

Today, it’s not food, it’s money and power they need. The vestigial fatal flaw is directing the uncaring bullies to compete.  In their minds, they are still fighting to survive – it is all their mediocre DNA will allow them to do. Instead of adapting to adopt an empathetic sharing nature that would benefit all members of their family, and species – they instead choose self over society.

Empathy, is one of the most important aspects of what it means to be human. Without empathy for others of your kind, you are just another smart, strong, competitive predator. Maybe it is empathy that is the answer, maybe it is the genetic key that unlocks the next level in our own evolution.

Will we level up…or will we damn dirty apes choose to fearfully continue to bar our teeth and bash  each other’s skulls in just as so many countless human primates stretching back millions of years into the past have done before?

Only time, and the rocks, will tell.